


In Your Place

by lornesgoldenhair



Series: The Mayfly and the Mountain [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Post-Episode: s09e12 Hell Bent, whouffaldi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 22:57:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6726763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lornesgoldenhair/pseuds/lornesgoldenhair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After years of travelling with Ashildr Clara decides to return to Gallifrey and her own timeline but attempts to Face The Raven fail and she is left in limbo, unresponsive, unable to live or die. Chased by Reapers and Time Lords Ashildr knows only one person can help them now, but can she risk reuniting Clara with him? With paradoxes and rifts opening, Reapers attacking and all hell breaking loose will Clara close the loop and sacrifice herself or will the Doctor take the place of a woman he has forgotten?</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Your Place

**Author's Note:**

> A fix it that may grow further down the line.

In Your Place

Ashildr’s Journal, 1st May 2407, ‘The Diner.’

_It wasn’t supposed to go like this. They lied. They lied to both of us or at best they were incompetent. They promised it was simple. That all we had to do was go back but when we got there it all went wrong and now we’re running again or at least I’m running, because she can’t move._

_Clara had said it was time and that she’d seen enough, seen 101 places and more, and I tried to argue her out of it but she was adamant, stubborn even. Those qualities I like best in her are backfiring now. She wanted to return to Gallifrey and she did. It was how it was meant to be, she said, she had promised she would go back, close the loop. It took her a few hundred years but she got there in the end._

_So we went back and we spoke to the General and the President and they took us to that room, all white, clinical, opened the doorway to Trap Street. Simple they said. Just slot back into Time, reverse the Extraction. But it wasn’t simple, how could it ever be? We’d already said our goodbyes on the way there, and I couldn’t think, it hurt so much. No-one had ever been with me that long, no-one had even touched on immortality or understood with me how it felt day to day, the exciting highs and the long dreary bits in between when everything is static. And we had shared all of that. She was my friend, my sister and she was so composed, so brave. I had hoped it would be quick for both our sakes._

_Clara went to stand in front of the Raven again, a heartbeat away from death, while the technicians in that cold room pressed buttons to unfreeze time._

_And that’s when it went wrong._

_I saw Clara stiffen but the Raven didn’t move. I saw the technician try a different lever but still nothing changed, and then I was running towards her instinctively, suddenly aware that something was wrong, with her, with Trap Street, with Gallifrey behind us. She was frozen but the skies weren’t. There was noise like thunder and demolition, and the rifts began to open all around us, paradoxes forming within and creatures tearing out of them, all wings and claws. Reapers, I knew, Clara had been taught about Reapers, and she told me the stories. We had to get out of there, fast, time was crumbling._

_I yelled at her to run and suddenly Clara unfroze long enough for me to drag her, winding through the corridors of the Citadel, back to our TARDIS. I cursed its size not for the first time as we had to hide it some distance away and meanwhile guards were coming after us fast. I glanced at Clara, running by my side, her face oddly expressionless and her movements automatic. I had to keep tugging her hand when she threatened to stop. There were shots ringing out from behind us and she dodged between columns with no sense of fear or urgency. Just running because she had been told to run, and no more. She was an automaton set in motion._

_We crashed into the TARDIS and staggered through to the console room, where I immediately began programming our escape. I glanced up and found Clara had seated herself nearby and watched as she quickly became still and unresponsive, folding her hands in her lap and gazing at nothing. But I didn’t have time to check on her and I could feel danger in the air. The Gallifreyans, the Time Lords, were aiming weapons at us, weapons advanced enough to take on even a TARDIS. The shields were up but struggling, the cloister bell ringing. As we started to dematerialise I could feel each strike reverberate though me. Clara didn’t move._

_So I pulled the lever. The one under the console. The one for the biggest emergencies only. The lights changed and the alarms faded and the TARDIS chose its own direction, impenetrable, largely untraceable, she could buy us time in the vortex before they caught us. She bought me time to check on Clara. I said her name and held her hand, tried to look into her eyes but she didn’t look back._

_We’ve been floating in the vortex for hours now and she’s come to once or twice. Just for seconds and then she vanishes. In those moments she looks so afraid. She was supposed to be dead and maybe this is worse. I don’t know how to help her. I can only assume something has gone horribly wrong with the time loop as they tried to put her back into her own timestream, but I don’t know what to do. I’ve got a dilemma, a big one and one that needs an answer soon. Because the Time Lords will come after us, they want to finish the deal, and I can’t leave Clara in suspended animation, locked in with her fear forever. I know where to find the answer, I know who is needed, there’s only one person who can help, if I help to reunite them._

_But should I?_

 

The Doctor slid himself out from under the console for the fifth time in as many minutes.

‘Put the power back on…’ he said wearily, eliciting no response from the TARDIS. ‘And while you’re at it stop trying to mother me, I’m perfectly fine, happens all the time it’s just the nature of things.’ He stared at the offending panel he had been tinkering with, ‘Companions come and go,’ he said more quietly, ‘I’ll get over it,’ and he pulled himself back under. Above him the TARDIS opened a slot on the console and produced a cup of coffee, the strong scent from it wafting down towards his nose. He heard his stomach growl and the ship let out a triumphant burble. It was clear to her that he was missing his latest friend, a pleasant young empath, and retreating into himself, neglecting to eat or drink. He would deny it, had been denying it for weeks, and it was time as far as she was concerned to move on. The TARDIS sent a wave of feeling to him and he tried to steer it away ineffectually for a minute before relenting and heaving himself up from the floor.

‘Oh maybe you’re right. How long have I been under there?’ he grasped his lower back and checked the monitor, several hours it would seem, how time passed when you were miserable and lonely. He reached for the coffee and skimmed through the notifications on the monitor, like Space Facebook one of his companions had once called it. He couldn’t remember who, and that bothered him for a second before he pushed the half remembered thought away along with the screen.

The Doctor mounted the steps to his balcony and hovered by his chair thoughtfully. He shouldn’t travel alone for long, his melancholy tended to get the better of him. Perhaps it was time to seek someone new, reinvent himself a little. He sipped the coffee. He didn’t feel like reinvention, it required too much effort and thought, and a part of him just longed for something familiar. His glance fell on his chalk board and the words written there that he had never had the heart to wipe clean. He knew they were written by her, and he knew that she was so important, that he felt it would be an affront to remove them. Instead he tried to live by them every day. Be a Doctor. His jacket hung there too, he’d worn it a long time, decades, until its cuffs frayed and its velvet became bare in patches. Then he had hung it up like a museum piece, a memory he couldn’t recall. She had left it for him with her message all that time ago. The board, the jacket and his sonic. All that was left, he knew, of his most important relationship.

He could feel the beginnings of the TARDIS gently chiding him for self pity, when she suddenly withdrew and the cloister bell rang out full volume, monitors flashing and lights spinning above. The Doctor dashed down the stairs, coffee rejected, _ejected_ over the floor, and began studying the screens in earnest. There was something in their sector, something worrying and familiar at once. He needed to see it now. Fingers flying over buttons he brought the thing on screen.

‘Gods, no, they can’t have…’

The huge cuboid ship floated directly in the path of the floating TARDIS, ten times its size and inscribed with Gallifreyan script. It sat there peacefully enough but its sheer volume intimidated the Doctor whose first thoughts were of being found by the Time Lords once again and the imminent loss of his freedom. But something didn’t make sense.

‘Siege mode,’ he questioned, ‘Why are you in siege mode? Is it a trick? Are you really that damaged? Where have you been my friend that you had to pull that lever?’

This might be interesting after all. He straightened himself up, brushing console debris from his waistcoat.

‘Address the besieged TARDIS,’ he said, waiting for his own ship to open a line, but before he could say a word a face appeared on screen. A very young, familiar face, but one he associated with grave mistakes and consequences. His jaw became a little more set. This woman made his stomach churn with the ghost of anger and adrenaline, and here once again the sight of her disturbed him. If he hadn’t saved her life, if she hadn’t been immortal… he shook his head, forced himself to concentrate.

‘Ashildr…’

‘You remember me then?’

‘Yes,’ he said shortly. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Got a problem,’ Ashildr glanced back over her shoulder, ‘Got a few actually and you’re the only guy who can help.’

‘Isn’t that always the way…’ he sighed, looking down at the keyboard. ‘Why the siege mode?’

‘That’s problem number one.’

‘Which is?’

‘Time Lords, paradoxes, Reapers…’

The Doctor’s eyes flew up to the screen again. ‘What?’ he said angrily, ‘Reapers? What have you been messing with now? Don’t you ever learn? You’ve seen what a paradox can do…’

‘Wait… it will make sense when I tell you about problem number two.’

‘There is no excuse for conjuring paradoxes,’ the Doctor said, ‘Stop playing games, leave whichever timeline it is you’ve interfered with alone.’

‘Said the man who risked everything, including paradoxes, for the woman behind me now.’

The Doctor froze, watched the monitor carefully. ‘What are you talking about, which woman? What has this to do with me?’ It could only be one, there was only one. In hundreds of years he had never even come close to finding her, at least he didn’t think so, he had no idea what she looked like.

Slowly Ashlidr took a step to one side revealing a seated figure, motionless and unblinking like a doll. She wore dark skinny jeans and a grey top edged with lace and her hair shone under the lights of their console room. The Doctor stared at her long and hard. Was there anything he recognised?

‘You won’t recognise her,’ Ashildr said reading his face, ‘But you will know who she is.’

‘Clara…’ he said quietly, all the time trying to take in her features so long forgotten. ‘What’s wrong with her, what happened?’

‘She tried to step back into her timeline, and she… froze. That’s when the Reapers came. Something went wrong Doctor, she’s stuck, she can’t face the raven and she can’t seem to unfreeze for longer than moments. She’s terrified in there, I just know it, she can’t live or die, her timeline is at war with itself.’

The Doctor took a pace towards the screen and inspected the image more closely, his mind going through possibilities.

‘I’ll need to come to you,’ he said at last, ‘I need to see her.’

‘Be quick, there might be Reapers following us.’

Ashildr reached for a lever and ended siege mode. Clara’s Diner TARDIS now floated garishly in the vortex. If any Time Lords were looking they would surely see it. She watched on the screen as the Doctor typed co-ordinates.

‘You’d better behave. You two aren’t supposed to be in the same room or the universe collapses,’ Ashildr warned half seriously.

‘It’s well on its way already, if the Reapers are here’ he replied, ‘Now just hang on, I’ll be right over.’

 

 

Landing a TARDIS within a TARDIS was not recommended and could potentially cause all sorts of imbalances in multi dimensional space and time, but this was an emergency and imbalances were already a major issue. The Doctor touched down in the diner and was met by Ashildr at the door to the console room. He got the distinct feeling she was blocking his way.

‘How long since you saw her?’ Ashildr asked briskly.

‘Is this relevant?’

‘Very, how long? For her it’s been four hundred, remember that if she comes around, four hundred years Doctor.’

‘It’s been a long time for me too…’ he started in protest.

‘But she never forgot,’ Ashildr cut back, steadily holding his gaze. ‘She remembered all of it and lived with it every day. She told me when we went back to Trap Street that it was time for her to close the loop because she’d done everything she wanted to. Maybe that’s true. But I know she had other reasons.’

‘Such as?’

‘She missed you,’ Ashildr said plainly, ‘And it was unbearable. She thinks I didn’t notice but I’ve been around half the age of the universe, I’ve seen a lot of grief. It was in every cell. Every day she missed you, you never left her, you couldn’t. You are a hybrid, ever since your timestream merged. Parts of her are sprinkled through your whole being, she’s in your DNA, your soul, so she could never forget. The memories couldn’t even fade. She was in her own confession dial with no way out. Until now, closing the loop, for her it was time.’

The Doctor hovered for a moment by the door. ‘I’ve no way to imagine it,’ he said, ‘There’s nothing there when I try to think of her.’

Ashildr took a small step to one side to unblock the way. ‘You’d think that was a bad thing…. But you don’t know how lucky you’ve been,’ she said, and pushed the door open.

Clara remained seated in the same spot since her escape from Trap Street. Her hands still folded in her lap and her head slightly bowed. Her dark hair hung around her face undisturbed by the rhythm of any breath. The Doctor took a few cautious steps towards her.

‘She’s been like this since you left?’ he asked.

‘She’s come around a few times. I managed to get her to the TARDIS and then she shut down again. I think she can move if under direct threat, some basic physiological response. Other than that…While she’s been here there’s been at least twice when I was speaking to her that she ‘woke up,’ it doesn’t seem to be a particular trigger that does it, just whenever she gets the strength to break through. She’s fighting it.’

‘She would need some strength to do that,’ the Doctor said. He was gradually edging towards her, uncertain both of what was happening scientifically but of what would happen when he got close to her. He looked over her features she approached. Dark hair. Creamy skin and unpainted rosey lips. He wished he could see her eyes from that angle, he could just catch her long lashes beneath her fallen hair. She was a waxwork, perfection, more beautiful than he had imagined her to be. Suddenly he began to understand the things he had done in her name.

Behind him Ashildr was growing impatient.

‘Talk to her, Doctor, she might respond again, it might help you figure this out.’

He chewed at his lip at her persistent voice and tried to steady his breathing. The doll like figure before him made him uncannily nervous. She had once been his closet friend, a woman he had loved so much he had nearly destroyed worlds for. He wondered if he feared doing that again but knew that deep down what he was fearing was rejection. Slowly he reached out to her cheek and let one finger gently drift over her soft skin as his thoughts rambled with anxiety.

He couldn’t remember their parting or what had been said. What if she had embraced their separation as the only way forward. What if although she missed him she knew they must never be together again. What if she was angry? What if…

She lifted her head and looked at him suddenly. Large brown eyes already wet with tears. It happened so quickly he felt himself stagger at the intensity of her gaze and then she held his hand to her cheek firmly. He expected her to fall back again, for her arm to go limp and the light die from her eyes but she held on, the struggle clear in her expression.

‘Clara?’ he asked as though introducing himself for the first time.

‘ _Your_ Clara,’ she corrected.

‘I… I don’t remember,’ and at that moment he hated himself. He could feel her memories flooding over him, too many to capture and taste, and he himself had nothing, not one memory left of who they once were.

‘I know,’ she said, ‘It’s OK. Don’t worry about it now. Are you trying to fix me?’

‘Maybe…possibly,’ he faltered as he saw her consciousness vanish for a moment before she struggled back to him.

‘Should you?’ she asked. It was blunt and without preamble and the question hit him hard. Didn’t she want to live?

‘I have to…’ he stuttered, ‘Ashildr brought me here…you’re in a limbo state…there is a hole in the timeline as a result and the Reapers have detected it.’ He saw her shake her head slightly. ‘Don’t… don’t you want me to fix you as well as it?’ he asked. ‘If I can give you a choice between life and death?’

‘Paradoxes, Reapers… you saw them…that’s just the beginning…’ Clara said with difficulty, ‘You know what will happen if we run. No, Doctor, I made a promise a long time ago that I would go back and I don’t break my promises. ’

‘There may be a way, if this loop is faulty then perhaps…’

‘No,’ she said with the last of her clarity, ‘You take me back and you fix it so that I can meet the Raven like I was supposed to. I went there to close the loop and I will. If we do that the Reapers vanish. You do what I say, Doctor, the consequences… they’re too big.’

He looked at her aghast, something inside him wildly protesting at her decision, and yet it was hers to make, the conclusion to her story, the one that used to be theirs togetrher.

‘You don’t remember me,’ Clara said, ‘That’s how it should be I guess, so use that, it won’t hurt this time I promise, and you can be strong.’ She stopped for a moment, her tears threatening to spill. Instead she smiled bravely. ‘Take me back there and fix the hole in time.’

But her hand was still holding his and the burble of her subconscious could be heard just faintly. Brave Clara as ever, was lying. With him standing in front of her now it changed everything and the thought of losing him again made her whole being hurt But she would do what was right, she had to, even if all she wanted was to be with him again. The memories slowed as she lost her grip on consciousness and he could see them now. The Doctor and Clara Oswald, and everything they had meant to one another. Dear God how he had been protected these last centuries. If he had remembered even a tenth of how he had loved her, he never would have survived. He felt her hand go limp and the glassy expression returned to her eyes. Time had frozen her again.

The Doctor rounded on Ashildr. ‘She says she wants to die, to let go. You got me here to help her die…?’ he accused.

‘It’s what she thinks is best,’ Ashildr stated calmly, ’she’s had her time, she went there under her own steam to close the loop but it’s not working. She needs your help, your knowledge to allow her to let go otherwise she’s suspended like this and the universe doesn’t seem to like it. There has to be a conclusion or those Reapers will wreak havoc, maybe worse than them will happen. It’s what she said while I was trying to find you, it was the reason she woke up at all.’

‘No!,’ the Doctor ran his hands helplessly through his hair, ‘How can you ask me… I loved her… I saw, in her mind, what we were….and I spent millions of years trying to get back to her for you to say she has to die. I can’t do it, I don’t help people die Ashildr, I help them live, especially her.’

‘It’s what she wants. It’s what the universe wants. Closure. I don’t want to lose her, she’s become my friend, but it must end, sooner or later.’

‘So says the immortal,’ He growled in frustration, his eyes never leaving Clara. Her motionless form was beginning to make him feel uncomfortable. The truth was that really she had been dead a long time depending which timeline you moved in. He had the knowledge that her grave was already occupied by a woman named Clara he didn’t know, but now here was the woman herself, and here was his chance to snatch her from the grave.

‘You know all this,’ Ashildr was saying, ‘You’re the Time Lord and you know the consequences. She always had to go back.’

He stood angrily glaring at the floor, arms folded and jaw set. ‘I know,’ he said.

‘Then what is all this? Just help her. It’s what she wants, it’s what’s needed.’

‘I just thought maybe… not yet… it doesn’t have to be yet…’

‘Oh no…’ Ashildr warned, ‘You thought you could get her back, her and the memories? No Doctor, can you imagine what would happen if that were so? You two are dangerous. The Reapers would tear the universe apart. The Time Lords would come after you. You would be running forever the pair of you.’

‘It’s not really so bad,’ he said quietly, ‘I’ve been running for years.’

‘Well so has she,’ Ashildr said, ‘For four hundred of them, for longer than most humans. It’s time. She wants to move on.’ She moved to the console and typed in the needed co-ordinates. ‘Trap Street, November 2015.’

Ashildr had the co-ordinates down to the very seconds Clara had been removed by the Time Lords and with careful manoeuvring of both TARDISes the three of them arrived on Trap Street to find an empty space in front of a raven, a gateway to Gallifrey and the shadow of a distraught Doctor some paces towards the Infirmary. The present Doctor looked at him with knowledgeable pity, he was about to begin his sentence in the confession dial on behalf of the woman in front of him. Now close to the place she left her timeline she was drifting in and out, freezing and unfreezing but with such rapidity she couldn’t talk or communicate. Around her and the Quantum Shade the two TARDISes created a dual purpose forcefield that both contained and locked time similar to that used by the technicians on Gallifrey. Ashildr, student of the TARDIS for many years now, knew her stuff alright and had clearly worked hard to get the Doctor there.

The Doctor glared at Ashildr as the two of them placed Clara before the Raven again. The viking was clever and she was right, and he hated it. Even without his memories of Clara he felt a pull towards her and now she was right before him and every nerve and cell screamed at him to save her. He knew deep below the neural block he still remembered everything, he just couldn’t see it, and somewhere inside those old memories were pleading with him. He didn’t want this, he couldn’t watch it, the expression on his younger self’s face told him everything he needed to know. As if sensing his thoughts Ashildr looked at him sternly and after checking Clara’s balance moved him firmly from the area.

‘We have to do this,’ she hissed, taking the sonic screwdriver in her hand. It had been linked up to both TARDIS controls for absolute simultaneous command, allowing time to unfreeze at the precise moment needed. ‘Look!’

Above them the sky had already come apart in brightly coloured rifts which pulsed and growled with tearing noises as they expanded and pushed aside temporal lines. In minutes a fresh flock of Reapers could appear in a bid to rectify the anomalies the Doctor and Clara had caused by Extracting her. There was so much criss crossing of timelines here things were particularly precarious. The consequences would be devastating, the process had to be stopped. He couldn’t stand it, he couldn’t let things go back to their original state, a universe without Clara and everything she had done.

The Doctor watched as Ashildr raised the sonic ready to send a signal to both consoles.

‘Goodbye Clara,’ she said with a small smile, ‘It was fun while it lasted.’

But the beam never left the device as the sonic was knocked from her hand. She stumbled to the ground and it went flying a few metres ahead, bouncing in the dirt. Ashildr glanced up and saw the Doctor move like lightning between Clara and the Raven, pushing her out of line and forcing himself into her place. In the moments following it was obvious that Clara had become conscious again, unfrozen at last, from the look of horror on her face and the tone of her cry when she shouted his name.

‘Doctor!’ she dived towards him to try and protect him the way he had her but it was too late. The Raven had struck hard between his hearts. ‘Doctor!’

He was aware of her calling for him and of her grip as her arms came around him. He was falling to his knees, striking the ground hard, but the pain in his chest outweighed any other discomfort he felt at that moment. A great searing tearing pain as the Quantum’s wings sliced through him and wrapped their tips around his lungs. He felt them squeeze, fought for breath and lost. Beside him Clara was struggling to keep him upright and he felt himself slump down so that his head rested against her shoulder but it was a losing battle. This thing would claim a soul and he had tried to trick it, defy it. The cold dark filled his heartbeats and quickly spread to each part of him, a frozen pulse to claim his body.

It occurred to him that Clara had been his first and last face, but that he hadn’t a single memory of her to call upon as he lay dying for her on the cobbles of the street.

 

_Ashildr’s Journal, May 5 th 2407, The Diner._

_He was dead. I watched him die, I watched the Raven take him and it didn’t make any sense. The Raven had given its mark to Rigsy and he gave it to Clara. From that point it was non transferable, that was the point, that’s what caused all this in the first place, it couldn’t be removed and the Quantum Shade always takes its soul. It took the Doctor’s, and it was horrible, to watch the smoke rise from his mouth, to see Clara clutch him to her that way. The look she gave me, as if all those years of friendship meant nothing, as if she remembered the part I played…_

_… of course she remembers. I made the deal with the Raven. It was my fault. But there was even more at stake. Time was starting to come apart and the Reapers were starting to come through. I could hear them, a horrible sound, it made your blood run cold and your skin prickle. They had altered history so much, two time travellers can do a lot of damage and now they were paying. Clara wasn’t dead but the Doctor was. Not even a Time Lord could survive the Raven. I don’t think we will escape this time, the universe is angry, and it will come for us and there will be nothing we can do._

_She didn’t seem to care. All of hell was breaking loose around us. People were running and screaming and monsters were coming from the sky, and all she did was hold him._

_Maybe all that mattered to her was being with him again._

_Maybe they will die together and that will be their reunion._

_Me?_

_I ran._

 

Regeneration was a variable experience. Sometimes short and sharp, sometimes drawn out. It depended on what number it was and where he was, and how damaged his body might be. Some he had been able to control, some had suffered horribly with and needed weeks of respite afterwards. Some he did alone, one or two with a trusted face close by.

This time he regenerated in the middle of a paradox. That was a first. But he recognised the face by his side as he lay still and seemingly dead.

Clara.

‘Doctor?’ she was crying, half shaking him, looking for some response. He had retreated into his mind while his body assessed the damage to itself and the changes started quietly on the inside. ‘Doctor please, if you can hear me, come back, please come back. I know you can’t remember me, but I know you, better than anyone in the universe, and that universe needs you. I need you… So come back… please,’ her voice hitched and somewhere not far behind her something howled as Time began to rain down its displeasure on the street, a massive paradox emerging behind the buildings.

He couldn’t delay. This regeneration wasn’t coming fast enough. He focused and slowly gathered energy, golden energy centred on his damaged hearts. He felt it spill across the blackened paths the raven had left behind and shine through his skin. Clara saw it and he heard her voice again.

‘Don’t change,’ she was saying, ‘Be you. You can choose you be you, chose that face again, be my Doctor.’

He felt her hold him tighten, and she pressed her forehead against his as they half knelt, half lay in the dirt of the road. She was whispering reassurance and he felt the energy within begin to peak, spread out along his limbs, and any moment the light would rush through him curing and mending… but then it stalled, tugged painfully at his organs. He was missing something, something the Raven took.

The words came back to him. The Raven, the Quantum Shade, it always gets its soul. Something was missing. He wasn’t a believer in souls, but nonetheless he couldn’t regenerate, something was missing and he was falling backwards towards the cold and dark. Clara could feel it, see it as the light faded and her panic came to him in a sudden psychic hit. He opened his eyes, a deep desperate breath.

He was dying.

And then he saw it. The light that came from her. It was a shock and not a shock and she seemed to understand innately why. It gathered over her heart and she took his hand, pressed it over the source and commanded him to take it, this piece of him that got tangled up within her long ago when she stepped into his Timestream.

Ashildr had been right, they had been a hybrid a long time, Clara had always been with him, seen every one of his faces, saved every one, and now here she was again wielding a power she shouldn’t have but, which had lain hidden until what could have been his final moments.

The raven had been tricked. They shared the soul it craved and he had given only a part of it to the Shade.

‘Clever boy,’ Clara said as he tipped back in her arms.

The Doctor felt the rush of regeneration, powerful now, bursting forth. There was a new power to his heart beat that was stronger than before, his lungs filled with air, the marks left by then Raven were erased. Clara’s face broke into a full and toothy smile, dimples to each side and the golden light reflected in her eyes as she watched him transform. Or not.

He stayed the same. For her, and her smile grew wider as she watched him. Knowing he had no time to spare, the Doctor stood and allowed himself just a moment to check all was well and right, that the basics were intact. Same arms and legs, same silver hair, slim physique, elegant and graceful, impressive eyebrows. Everything in place, everything as it was, in body, spirit and… He stopped and blinked, frowned at his inner dialogue even as hell was churning around them. The Doctor looked over at her with an expression of amazement.

‘Clara!’ he said.

‘Yes,’ Clara confirmed scrabbling to her feet and looking ready to flee.

‘I’m the same,’

‘Yup I can see that,’ she giggled, ‘I’m glad but shouldn’t we be running now?’

‘No, I mean, all of me,’ he clarified, ‘Everything.’

Clara pulled a face at him, ‘Not entirely sure which bits you are referring to,’ she quipped, ‘And not sure now’s the time to go exploring, that paradox isn’t looking too great,’ she gestured behind the Infirmary where the fluctuating hole in their dimension was growing. The Doctor could see the shadows of Reapers waiting to come through.

‘No,’ he said as he took her hand and pulled her towards the TARDIS. ‘My mind,’ he said, ‘I have the same mind.’

Same mind. Come on see the significance. He could see her puzzled expression.

‘Your mind doesn’t change when you regenerate. I mean not really, a few likes and dislikes, some personality stuff…’

He bundled her through the TARDIS door and closed it against the noise of the rising gale outside.

‘That’s true but I’m talking about something specific. I’ve had a reset,’ he was tapping numbers into the console and Clara came up to him curiously, peered into his face as he frantically worked.

‘A reset?’ she asked.

He looked at her expectantly, raised his eyebrows with exasperation. ‘Come on,’ he said impatiently, ‘I regenerate, thereby healing all the bits that need healed or aren’t functioning as they should including…’ he made a rotating gesture with his hand and waited. ‘Including…’ he said again to prompt her.

‘Your memories….’ Clara said quietly, uncertainly at last, she looked deep into his eyes, ‘Your memories?’ she said again her voice rising. ‘It removed the neural block… wait it can do that?’

He looked at Clara, his grin widening and she saw it in his eyes before he had to reply. Everything she ever was to him, she had become again. He had remembered and each snapshot from the past was now playing through his mind, one after another, setting up its rightful place in the most precious and protected spots. It was too much, he felt his tears burn, and saw the same response in her, but before he could say more Clara and thrown her arms around his neck, forcing him to lift her a little against him. The Doctor felt her kiss his neck and cheek, push her fingers deep into his soft hair, a flood of relief and adoration washing over her. He squeezed her harder and now that she was off the ground he couldn’t resist but to spin her in circles by the console, weightless and cherished, in the way he knew she loved.

Because he remembered.

There was an ominous thundering noise and the screens flashed up scenes from outside the TARDIS. In the street Reapers were stalking the buildings looking for the last of the alien residents who were fleeing the area. They knew the Doctor was in the ship, Clara too, and they wanted to exact punishment. They didn’t care about the Raven receiving it’s prize, just the impact on timelines and they were potentially massive when the Doctor was involved. The noise grew and the ship trembled, even its structure was vulnerable to this.

‘We need to get out of here,’ the Doctor said above the noise. ‘And we need to secure this street and that paradox.’

‘What’s happening?’ Clara yelled back.

‘We can patch it over.’

‘We can?,’ she asked confused. ‘How?’

‘Your death wasn’t the fixed point. It was how you died and where. It was all about the ‘soul’ promised to the Raven, and it got that at the right time and place. Contract completed. It’s just that it got it from me and I’m less easy to kill.’

‘But that was _my_ soul. If it was a soul at all, I don’t know if I believe in souls,’

‘Now isn’t the time for a theological debate, Clara.’

‘OK but it was _mine_ the raven wanted. I had the tattoo right up until the end, I could feel it.’

The Doctor stopped briefly and looked at her seriously.

‘No Clara, that soul, life force whatever you want to call it, it was ours. It’s been ours for quite a while, Impossible Girl. Ever since you stepped into my timestream we’ve shared more than you’ve been aware of day to day, and luckily it was enough in an unusual situation like this to trick the Raven… I didn’t have a tattoo but we carry that soul in both of us.’

‘So the raven believed it had its prize.’

‘Yes…. but we shouldn’t hang around too long all the same. Just in case,’ he added sheepishly. He began programming the console with an equation Clara didn’t recognise.

‘We’ve meddled with timelines and we need to patch them up. Time mends all things eventually but Trap Street can’t be allowed to spread. That paradox can’t spread so, I’m going to create a pocket universe,’ he explained sensing her lurking at his shoulder, ‘Trap Trap street and its dimensional rift inside, bind it inside the vortex. It will stop the Reapers coming through here but that’s not to say they will just arrive some other place at some time. They are after us now, just like the Time Lords will be...’

Clara raised her eyebrows, ‘You see this is the stuff I wasn’t any good at when I had my own TARDIS, all the science bits that… wait…’ she stopped expression suddenly irritated. ‘She took my TARDIS.’

‘Hmm?’ He continued to tap out numbers.

‘She’s gone. Ashildr. One minute she’s being my friend, being supportive of me closing that loop, supportive of my choice to die. The next she’s run off while we’re being attacked and you were regenerating. I don’t think I’m very happy about that.’

The Doctor chuckled, he had never quite trusted the Viking. ‘Fairweather friend. Admittedly for four hundred years but fairweather nonetheless. There is a reason she called herself Me all that time.’

The heart of the TARDIS began to make a deep throbbing noise and Clara watched on screen as figures and diagrams flashed up reflecting the process of the pocket universe’s creation. The Doctor felt her wrap her arms around him from behind and lean against his shoulder as he worked. She needed comfort and she needed to feel that he was real, he understood that because he felt the same.

‘What happens after this?’ Clara asked quietly. ‘I don’t want to die anymore. I never did really.’

‘You can’t go back to the street anyway,’ he replied finishing up some programming. ‘I’ve sealed it off and its very unstable. Reopening it might be enough to cause a complete meltdown in space and time.’

‘So I guess I’m going to have to live. I can cope with that.’

‘Well, circumstances have changed,’ the Doctor said kindly.

‘You mean you’re here?’ she teased, ‘Life’s worth living again. Honestly you and your ego.’ She rubbed his arm.

‘I mean we’re a team again, Clara, you and me,’ he said softly. ‘Just like before, better maybe?’

She considered this for a moment. ‘Some planets and adventures, some monsters, some running away from bloodthirsty Reapers and stuck up Time Lords. Sounds like fun, it’s not been the same without you.’

‘We probably have a lot of catching up to do.’

‘A few hundred years’ worth,’ Clara confirmed, ‘I’ve been quite busy, lots to say. We could go to that New Years planet with the twenty four hour bars and swap adventures.’ The memory came quickly to him and though he tried to supress it she saw him smile out of the corner of her eye and pinched his arm in mock vengeance. A thunderous noise rode out suddnely as the rifts above them pulsed and contracted. Clara glanced at the Doctor in concern.

‘I thought this was under control?’ she said.

‘Time is resetting itself, settling as best it can after we’ve mucked about with it,’ the Doctor explained. ‘Tidal waves, Clara, lots of them. I’ve no idea yet which past or future events will vanish, if any. I’ll have to keep an eye on the screens, the TARDIS will give me notification of anything important.’

Clara laughed lightly, ‘You and your Space Facebook,’ she said.

He paused and looked over his shoulder at her. ‘I’d been trying to remember who came up with that. Should have known it was you, little miss Space Everything,’ he watched her smile, ‘Come on, let’s go.’ He pulled the lever to dematerialise.

‘What about the confession dial?’ Clara asked, ‘Is it one of those events that might not happen?’

‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘But I suspect Time will find a way of forcing me to remember that and all that came with it.’

‘I don’t want you to have to, it sounded terrible.’

‘It doesn’t matter Clara, I have no regrets,’ he replied even as the form of the Veil wandered through his consciousness.

‘But the paradox…? I’m not dead so you won’t go there. That has to be good right?’

‘Paradoxes are complicated Clara.’

‘That’s just your way of saying it’s too complicated to explain to my tiny human brain,’ she laughed.

‘Your brain is not as tiny as other humans… but yes…’ he felt the muscles of his face twinge, his expression flux and cover the effects of the horrors of that particular time. They were hidden deep inside him and they had to stay there for the moment. Maybe one day he’d feel able to speak about them but not now.

Clara had sensed it of course and punched him on the arm gently to lighten the mood. ‘Hey, less of the tiny. I’ve learned a lot in the last four hundred years, I’m quite the intergalactic traveller.’

‘I bet you are,’ the Doctor said distantly, ‘an experienced, competent time traveller. Who is once again hanging around with this old man.’ He fiddled with a button. He had to give her the opt out and that frightened him. She had after all chosen to die earlier in the day rather than live longer and longer. ‘I mean there’s an awful lot out there for you still Clara, that doesn’t involve me. Just because we’ve avoided the Raven doesn’t mean you have to sign up with this TARDIS…’ Clara stopped peering at the screen and looked up at him.

‘What are you on about?’

‘I’m just saying that…’

‘Shut up! You’re the whole reason I want to keep going,’ she said to him. ‘I have spent four hundred years missing you, I’m not going to spends a minute longer.’

‘Right,’ he said, uncomfortable.

She was smiling at him fondly, ‘Yes, right,’ she said, ‘As in right I’m going to say this and you’re going to listen. Do you remember what I said to you in the Cloisters? It was one of the last conversations we had.’

He felt his cheeks grow warm, ‘Yes.’

‘It was four and a half billion years too late, I should have told you the moment I realise, and I think you’ve regretted that too, keeping quiet all that time.’ Clara said, and he nodded, a choking feeling in his throat preventing speech.

‘So how about we get that bit out of the way a bit earlier this time?,’ she carried on, ‘I know you’re not one for big gestures and expression of actual feelings, except when punching walls and trapping yourself in your personal hell… and that’s really going too far, but you know you were starting to get it, sort of, with the guitar and ‘Pretty Woman,’ and the Space Restaurants so…’

‘I love you,’ he said suddenly a wave of need washing over him. His voice cracked but it suddenly didn’t matter, he just had to tell her, ask her. ‘Stay with me, here, on the TARDIS. Always.’

Clara looked at him softly for a moment, ‘And if I stay, which of course I will, no more dramatics, no more lies, no more changing timelines for me, or diamond hard walls.’

‘I promise.’

‘Just be with me, let’s just allow ourselves what we didn’t the last time.’ She stepped closer to him and he felt the warmth of her body against him.

‘Yes,’ he said bashfully. Clara looked at him expectantly and then cleared her throat to draw his attention, gave him a look of impatience. She was clearly wanting something, her wide expressive eyes told him that but he was never very good at reading these things.

‘Your face, it’s doing something?’ he said.

‘Kiss, Doctor, this is where you kiss me.’

‘Oh!’ The Doctor hesitated for a moment in anxiety before leaning down to close the considerable height difference. He felt Clara rock up onto her toes and balance herself against his chest. Slowly, confidence increasing and the memory of the Cloisters now fresh in his unaltered and unfettered mind, he pressed a soft kiss to her lips, lingering just long enough to make her gasp for breath.

She frowned, surprised at her need for air, and grasped suddenly at her chest. ‘Oh!’ she squeaked before glancing down to where her fingers now pressed on her wrist. There was a pause during which the Doctor watched her expression as realisation dawned. He sensed it before she did, Time Lord hearing and perceptions lent him the edge, and it was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever witnessed.

‘My heart’s beating,’ Clara said with an excited smile. ‘Doctor, it’s beating!’

‘Time always heals,’ he replied with a conviction which hid his relief and surprise. He took one of her hands and brought his lips to her knuckles, kissed her gently and then slid her into his embrace. He raised his eyebrows mischievously. ‘Now, Clara Oswald, where to first?’

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
